1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to dough forming machines and particularly to an apparatus for extruding a column of dough and cutting an end segment from that column, the cut dough segment falling into a catchment vessel.
2. Prior Art
An apparatus that includes a hopper structure wherefrom a dough is passed or extruded and that dough formed into shapes or segments is not new. For example, a device for extruding dough and cutting across that dough extrusion so as to form dough segments that are then deposited onto a sheet is shown in a patent by Rhodes, U.S. Pat. No. 4,190,410. Similar to the structure of the Rhodes patent, other devices have employed a hopper structure with an arrangement for capturing and columnizing dough to pass it through a nozzle and each includes an arrangement for sectioning, at intervals, that extruded dough. For example, a patent by Elliott, U.S. Pat. No. 2,383,536, shows such an extruding arrangement with a guillotine type cutter. Also, arrangements of a hopper with extruding nozzle and an arrangement for cutting across the extruded dough are also shown in patents by Kremmling, U.S. Pat. No. 1,932,345, and Weidenmiller, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 2,838,012. None of these devices, however, involves a pneumatic feed, oscillating blade cutter or the particular structural elements of the automatic dough cutter of the present invention.
The oscillating blade dough cutter of the present invention includes a blade with cutting edges formed along opposite blade edges to cut through a column of dough in either direction of swing. Functionally similar to the present invention, a guillotine type of cutter is shown in a patent by Nagy, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,442,131, and a wiper or oscillating knife cutter is shown in a patent by Neel, U.S. Pat. No. 4,025,260. Neither of these patents, however, show the particular blade structure of the present invention, in that neither involves a blade arrangement that can be easily dismounted for cleaning. Nor are the Nagy, et al. or Neel devices operated pneumatically and in conjunction with and under the control of an optical sensor as is the present invention.
Further unlike the present invention, none of the art cited above are part of a system of components, covers and a chute that are easily dismounted for cleaning, such that, in operation, the extruding dough will not come in contact with a surface of the assembly that is not a flat surface that is easily cleaned or cannot be removed for cleaning as in a conventional dishwashing machine.